He can provide the most wonderful encouragement to others. But his own burden is lack of time—lack of time for all his obligations, for all he should do. Publisher after publisher offers him handsome advances, and he declines them. He knows he would not fulfill the obligation.
We were at lunch not long ago. “I’m going down to Mexico on my vacation,” he said. “I’m going to visit Motley.”
I had known the tragic eyes of Willard Motley, whose Knock on Any Door did not fill our friend, Algren, with any particular enthusiasm.
“You know, that Nelson is mean,” Jack said. “He wrote some nasty things about me in the Reporter. Did you see that?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Well, he did. We used to see a lot of each other.”
We walked back to the office building where Jack does his faithful, painstaking hack work.
“I’ll drop you a line from Mexico,” he said. “I’ll tell Motley that you’re writing a book. Take care of yourself. I’ll see you when I get back.”
The grey-blue eyes were suddenly swollen with sadness, and the voice stretched in a heavier drawl. I wished with all my heart that things would work out well for Jack Conroy.
The relationship between genius and disaster is too deep for me to comprehend. I do know that genius is never made; it is only discovered. There has to be a front runner. The notion that genius will out, regardless of circumstances, is simply to ignore the nature of genius, which must center upon itself in order to function. I sometimes think that the energy expended in creating a really imaginative work drains the humanity out of the artist. If his personal life suffers as a consequence, his business acumen is even more incidental.